PARIS—Ateme, a provider of video compression, delivery, and streaming solutions, will be at the 2024 NAB Show, highlighting new developments in its ad insertion platform. 

Specifically the company will focus on how its Server Side Ad Insertion solution now supports the latest Apple HLS Intersitials specification. This development of the Ateme NEA solution for targeted advertising ensures a superior viewing experience while enabling content and service providers to increase revenue streams through wider reach and more effective ad targeting, the company said.

Implemented initially for a leading content and service provider in Europe, the solution is one of the first SSAI solutions in the market to include support for HLS Interstitials Ateme said, offering seamless transitions from content to ads and back to content, despite differences in codec parameters and audio tracks; the ability to enhance or restrict player control actions during ad breaks as well as the ability to reverse or change inserted ads after initial decisions. Ateme says its “stronger technical solution” will be more resiliet to ad-break conditioning and segment boundaries in the HLS manifest.

"Content and service providers are struggling to find new ways to increase their revenue,” said Ahmed Swidan, Director of Personalized TV at Ateme. “One way to achieve this is to reach more viewers, on more devices, with the best ad-insertion techniques. The latest HLS Interstitials specification from Apple enables a wider reach, while also introducing advanced functionalities for ad-break replacement logic and making the system more resilient. We are thrilled to be among the first vendors to implement this standard, helping the media industry reach its full monetization potential."

Ateme will discuss the latest advances to its SSAI solution at Booth W1721 in the West Hall of the LVCC during the 2024 NAB Show in Las Vegas,  April 14-17.

AMSTERDAM—Irdeto has launched its Irdeto Server Side Ad Insertion platform, which maximizes the addressable live ad inventory of OTT video at scale while delivering a seamless TV-like viewer experience, the company said today.

The solution integrates with any ad server or an existing CSAI (client-side ad insertion) solution to deliver targeted, personalized ads during live events and on linear channels. While Irdeto declined to identify its first customer, the company said the solution has already been brought to market and is being used to deliver targeted ads at scale to online video subscribers using connected platforms.

“For decades advertising has been the backbone of live television," said Shane McCarthy, chief operating officer of video entertainment at Irdeto. "As the consumer viewing behaviors rapidly shift towards streaming video platforms, it is only natural for us to seek new innovative solutions to empower our customers. We're proud to be rolling out this new solution to provide a TV-like ad viewing experience on a video streaming platform, which helps streaming services overcome the current challenges of latency, device fragmentation and ad blocking of other ad insertion technologies,” 

“With this new solution we empower streaming platforms to explore new revenue streams by maximizing the value of their premium OTT ad inventory," he continued. "Ultimately, it's about listening to our customers and delivering solutions that can empower them.” 

The new solution creates an individualized media stream for segments of viewers to personalize and target ads. To do so, the original streaming manifest is modified for each viewer. Each ad decision is based on the viewer’s information and profile, such as past viewing history, demographics and geographical location. The data is matched to an ad on the ad server, which is targeted to a viewer audience with a similar profile, the company said.

When the Irdeto SSAI detects an ad profile, the selected ad is added into the content stream before it reaches the viewer’s playback device, it said.

Adding ads into the live stream in the network eliminates latency and buffering and ensures continuously high video quality when comparing that of program content and ads to offer viewers a smooth TV-like viewing experience, it said.

Ad blocking is minimized, and SSAI eliminates timeouts and black screens during ad playback due to device fragmentation. 

Irdeto’s SSAI users can maximize their addressable live ad inventory at scale, and OTT service providers can leverage existing ad servers and CSAI infrastructure or build infrastructure from scratch. The company’s broad partner eco-system and vendor agnostic outlook allows customers the freedom to work with their vendors of choice, Irdeto said.

A tracking manager in the Irdeto SSAI platform monitors ads that are stitched into a stream. The manager tracks various aspects of the ad, such as impressions, errors and quartile completion, it said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

WALTHAM, Mass.—Ad Insertion Platform (AIP) has integrated the Zixi protocol with its broadcast and OTT ad insertion solutions, giving content providers new ways to monetize live channels, the company announced.

AIP’s DAIConnect SSAI platform enables one-to-one replacements of ad breaks for live streams as well as one-to-one insertions of ad breaks for on-demand content. This allows manipulation of the stream manifest without altering the video of customers. Composed of several modules that can be used together DAIConnect has at its core the Ad Break Composer, which is used to create user-targeted Ad Pods, the company said.

Built on editable templates, the composer makes it possible to mix ads that can come from one or more ad servers of supply-side platforms (SSPs) and other types of ad bumpers, interstitials, promos and templates catered to customer’s needs, it said.

The AIP Manifest Manipulator inserts the created Ad Pod at the manifest level for each end user, and all ads and content are transcoded on the customer video profiles to avoid poor user experiences. The AIP Optimizer optimizes value of the ad break inventory enabling a unified header bidding auction by connecting multiple demand sources to retrieve the highest revenue for each opportunity. AIP Insight enables the customer to see and analyze data about ad sales, viewership and performance, the company said.

AIP customers can ingest distribution feeds into the Zixi SDVP, control the SCTE-35 markers and leverage Zixi live transcoding for OTT distribution in HLS or MPEG-DASH, easily enabling ad insertion and monetization of these feeds, it said.

Combining DAIConnect with the SDVP allows the customer to have an OpEx model subscription that includes additional OTT services to answer broadcasters and operator’s needs. With the integration of the SDVP, AIP users can now leverage Zixi for live transcoding and seamless delivery of broadcast quality content over IP, it said.

The Zixi protocol is a resilient congestion and network-aware protocol that adjusts to varying network conditions and employs patented, dynamic Forward Error Correction techniques for error-free video transport over IP with 99.9999% uptime at minimal latency, the company said.

It also provides best-in-class security with DTLS and AES encryption, allows for protected multicast transport, provides bandwidth efficiency and enables encoder backpressure, it said.

Zixi ZEN Master is also integrated to enable users to manage large-scale configurations and orchestrate, analyze, monitor, alert, and report on live video streams and devices across the Zixi Enabled Network of customers, integrated hardware and software applications, and platforms and service providers standardized on Zixi, it said. 

The SDVP’s Intelligent Data Platform (IDP) provides the transparency and control needed to guarantee reliable operation. Using advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI, the IDP can intelligently alert users to problems before they happen through alerts, graphs, maps, charts, and data visualizations that enable users to quickly interpret vast amounts of stream data and ensure broadcast-quality results.

More information is available on the Zixi website. 

Zixi will present with AIP on server-side ad insertion (SSAI) from the NAB Show on Oct. 12, 11-11:45 a.m. EDT. Click the link to register.

More information is available on the company’s website. 

NEVADA CITY, Calif.—Telestream is updating its IQ Video Quality Monitoring solution for OTT streaming and Linear TV, giving it ad-insertion monitoring capabilities for enhanced visibility, alerting and diagnostics for ad-based streaming video operations teams, the company announced.

The new version of the IQ Video system monitors and audits the ad-insertion workflow. It provides data, metrics and alarms in real time, pinpointing issues in the workflow. Automated alerts, simplified dashboards and analytical reports help operations teams manage the ad-insert workflow.

The IQ Monitoring solution checks whether ad frequency is dropping or meeting targets; if ad opportunities are available in both linear and OTT playout; can clients reach the ad servers and does the ad play correctly; is the quality of the ad video, audio and captions good?

Additional elements of the IQ Monitoring system specifically targeting streaming include monitoring QoE of DRM encrypted streams; enhanced on-demand scheduling to monitor live and VOD services; and a lightweight ABR mode, which reduces CDN monitor traffic.

“Ad-insertion on streaming networks can be complex and is increasingly a top focus for streaming operators,” said Matthew Driscoll, director of Product Management, Telestream. “Our goal is to provide a single pane-of-glass dashboard for advertising workflows. Simple trending graphs and metrics confirm ads are present and working properly. When things fail, we highlight the area of focus so our users can isolate the issue quickly and use diagnostic information to restore services.”

The updated IQ Video Quality Monitoring solution is now available. For more information, visit www.telestream.net.  

COLUMBIA, Md.—LTN Global has launched LTN Cue Managed Service, a new service that expands access to the company’s automated channel management, advanced advertising and content replacement workflow. Built on the same technology behind the LTN Connect managed service, which is deployed on the user premises, LTN Cue takes SCTE 35 decoration onto the LTN Network and performs SCTE marker insertion en route to video distribution partners and affiliates. With a straightforward workflow for sending properly decorated feeds to cable, satellite and virtual MVPDs including YouTube TV, Sling TV and Hulu + Live TV, channel originators can scale up their distribution, viewership and ad revenue.

"Our LTN Cue and LTN Connect managed services help channel providers to realize the new opportunities that come with accurately marking ad breaks and other content for downstream cable, satellite and digital platforms," said Rick Young, senior vice president and head of global products at LTN Global. "LTN Cue and LTN Connect automate the complex tasks of decorating feeds to suit various distributors' profiles and guarantee the precision essential to proper downstream handling of markers. These services empower broadcasters, cable channels, diginets and digital-first streaming networks to converge and scale their inventory and video distribution workflows—and in turn drive revenue growth."

LTN Cue and LTN Connect are part of LTN's universal media technology ecosystem, which unites technologies secured with the company's 2019 acquisition of Niles Media Group, Make.TV and Crystal Corporation to address workflows from production and publishing to transformation and transport. Built on Crystal's AdConnect solution, these two fully managed, linear metadata services make it easier for channel originators to leverage and scale decoration and distribution in a seamless and straightforward workflow.

While LTN Cue is designed for simpler playout operations and LTN Connect for more complex operations incorporating multiple sources, both services read, interpret, transform and apply the right message at precisely the right time to signal programs, national ad breaks, local ad breaks and specific ads/promos in a live linear channel feed delivered on any platform. The services connect playout, compression, transport and cross-platform SCTE 35 distribution workflows according to the needs of channels and distributors. They are compatible and expandable with other industry-standard workflows (i.e., SCTE 104 and 130) and interoperable with workflows involving SMPTE ST 2022, ST 2110 and ST 2038. The services are backed by a 24/7 network operations center to ensure reliable, flexible and profitable channel distribution.

"LTN Cue and LTN Connect are built on a decade of leadership in SCTE 104/35 channel decoration and supported by industry-leading technical resources and engineering staff," added Roger Franklin, general manager of channel management at LTN Global. "Helping channel providers address the vagaries of ad signaling across platforms, these easy-to-implement services open the door to broader channel distribution and even more effective ad monetization."

For more information, visit www.ltnglobal.com.

Reading,UK, 16 October 2019: Starfish Technologies, a pioneer in transport stream processing and advertising insertion, has supplied a multi-channel compliance recording system to Kungliga biblioteket, The National Library of Sweden in Stockholm, Sweden, in cooperation with Starfish’s Swedish partner Lanlink Digital Broadcast.

The system utilises Starfish’s ‘Verify’ compliance recording technology which can record multiple channels of live TV broadcast and features a fully managed system with auto failover. Built using generic IT hardware from HP, it includes the Starfish web-based monitoring application to view and manage the operation of the N+N configuration. Input signals are presented as encoded transport streams from both the satellite and terrestrial feeds for each channel automatically switching between the two feeds when detecting a missing input.

Starfish Marketing Director Peter Blatchford said, “We have been building systems in Sweden for many years with companies such as TV4 and Red Bee Media and are delighted to have been chosen to now supply The National Library of Sweden. The Starfish Verify Compliance Recording System is highly configurable and utilises our expertise with transport stream processing and web based system monitoring’.

Susanne Sellei from National Library of Sweden added “We wanted a compliance recording system that is capable of supporting multiple channel recordings as an effective way to handle collected broadcast television programmes. We see Starfish as a trusted supplier and knew we could rely on their proven expertise”

###

About Starfish Technologies
Starfish Technologies has an excellent reputation for meeting international broadcasters’ expectations with innovative products and systems. Starfish solutions are proven in service and have been implemented by an impressive list of international customers.

Starfish has developed a wide range of in-house expertise in technologies including: Transport Stream splicing, Transport Stream processing, Multi-platform delivery, Opt-out encoding/decoding, Video Encoding and Transcoding, Video Description and Compliance recording. With this broad software expertise and systems design experience, Starfish is ideally suited to build automated systems for media suppliers across a wide range of applications.

Headquartered in Reading, UK, Starfish Technologies is an ISO 9001 registered company.

Further product and press information can be obtained at www.starfish.tv

Company contact:
Peter Blatchford
Email: pete@starfish.tv

Press contact:
Jennie Marwick-Evans
Manor Marketing
Email: jennie@manormarketing.tv

About The National Library
The National Library of Sweden collects, preserves and makes available almost everything that is published in Sweden - from manuscripts, books and newspapers to music, TV programs and pictures. Being a research library, it also has major collections of literature published in other countries. The collections of the National Library consist of more than 18 million objects, including books, posters, pictures, manuscripts, and newspapers. The audio-visual collection consists of more than 10 million hours of recorded material.

Learn more at www.kb.se

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – March 14, 2019 – Cobalt Digital today announced a partnership with Starfish Technologies, a U.K.-based broadcast technology company, to provide transport stream splicing using the Starfish Technologies TS Splicer software and the Cobalt SCTE-104/35 insertion system. The new solution creates an affordable, automated ad insertion or media replacement system for broadcast, IPTV, satellite, and cable TV applications.

Designed to be a complete replacement for ad insertion or content blocking applications, the TS Splicer combines the functionality of an integrated ad server, SCTE-35 opt-out signal decoding, input stream switching, and transport stream splicing. It takes in transport streams with SCTE-35 triggers and inserts advertisements based on the embedded control signals. The fully configurable TS Splicer performs a technically clean media switch with minimal propagation delay.

Cobalt offers a range of MPEG encoders and decoders, as well as a series of frame synchronizers and scalers, with SCTE-104 injection support. Compatible units include the BBG-1002 Series of standalone encoders, 9902 and 9904 Series openGear® cards, and the new 9992-ENC-HEVC (H.265) card, which offers upgradable multi-channel MPEG-2/AVC encoding.

"Ad insertion is a vital part of any content distribution system, and we are excited to work with Starfish Technologies to add transport stream splicing to our offerings,” said Chris Shaw, executive vice president of sales and marketing, Cobalt Digital. “This partnership adds further functionality to meet the needs of our customers.”

“Starfish are delighted to be working with such a highly respected supplier. Forming this partnership allows both Cobalt Digital and Starfish Technologies to share their expertise and develop leading solutions which will undoubtedly benefit a wide range of customers,” added Peter Blatchford, sales and marketing director, Starfish Technologies.

About Starfish Technologies
Founded more than ten years ago, Starfish Technologies has an excellent reputation for meeting international broadcasters’ expectations with innovative products and systems. Starfish solutions are proven in service and have been implemented by an impressive list of international customers.

Starfish has developed a wide range of in-house expertise in technologies including: Transport Stream splicing, Transport Stream processing, Multi-platform delivery, Opt-out encoding/decoding, Video Encoding and Transcoding, Video Description and Compliance recording. With this broad software expertise and systems design experience, Starfish is ideally suited to build and operate automated systems for media suppliers across a wide range of applications.

Headquartered in Reading, UK, Starfish Technologies is an ISO 9001 registered company. Further product and press information can be obtained at www.starfish.tv.

About Cobalt Digital
Cobalt Digital Inc. designs and manufactures award-winning edge devices that help live video production and master control clients transition to IP, 4K, HDR, the cloud, and beyond. As a founding partner in the openGear® initiative and proud member of SMPTE, Cobalt also offers a best-of-breed interoperability platform that simplifies technological adoption. Distributed through a worldwide network of dealers, system integrators, and other partners, Cobalt Digital products are backed with a five-year warranty. Learn more at www.cobaltdigital.com. 

SAN DIEGO—Vigor Systems is rolling out a software-as-a-service version of its advanced linear local ad insertion platform, the Advertio Cloud.

The Advertio Cloud moves media delivery, scheduling and monitoring into the cloud and offers a number of subscription benefits, including monthly rental of server; access to the Vigor Cloud Portal via a desktop or mobile device; advanced overnight shipment of replacement servers; remote assistance from Vigor with systems setup; and ongoing support for portal, hardware and software updates.

New features to the platform will include a channel monitoring matrix; quick upload tool for ad media and CCMS schedules; scalable station infrastructure set up; and media and playout log monitoring from a central location.

The Vigor server included in all subscriptions is a high-density DPI ad server for SD and HD content. Current Advertio functionality supports MPEG-2 and MPEG4 AVC (H.264) in SD and HD formats as well as SCTE-30/35 DPI trigger commands. The unit also has interoperability with ad splicers, simultaneous ad insertion on up to 100 channels and 96,000 SD/36,000HD 30-second ad storage capacity.

Vigor will begin Advertio Cloud service roll out in March.

MIDDLESEX, ENGLAND—Seven Networks provided full court coverage of the 2017 Australian Open—which took place in January—and with the help of Yospace was able to monetize its online coverage.

Seven Networks provide online streaming coverage of action from all 16 courts in play during the annual tournament, but in the past had encountered some problems with ad insertion for its live streams. Some issues included the performance of mid-roll advertising and the integrity of the stream. Using Yospace’s Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) platform, Seven was able to insert advertising before the stream is delivered to the platform/device, which it says is more in line with viewers broadcast television expectations.

The DAI platform translates established systems to an OTT environment, ensuring frame-accuracy and seamlessness to online advertising, while also being able to create customized streams for particular viewer requirements or interests. The Yospace system offers a server-side stitching approach designed for modern, multi-platform broadcast advertising strategy by allowing a single stream, with ads already stitched in, to be delivered across multiple platform/devices. The DAI system can also track ads through an SDK embedded in the player.

“Yospace offered great flexibility and really understood the broadcast workflow,” said Damian McNamara, head of digital video, infrastructure and operations for Seven West Media. “The platform excels at delivering a custom experience for each user, and that enabled a seamless delivery to premium and non-premium viewers.” 

DALLAS—In an effort to expand its xG Ad Insertion for Multiscreen (AIM) system, Imagine Communications has announced that it added Placement Opportunity Information Service (POIS), Ad Decision Router (ADR), and Ad Decision Service (ADS) software-based modules. These additions boost the ad insertion capabilities of Imagine’s advertising management systems, according to Imagine.

POIS works with the xG AIM manifest manipulator and third-party ad insertion systems to identify linear ad positions, alternate content events, slates and blackouts; it also provides attributes and constraints for placement opportunities. The module works with Imagine ADS and ADR to pre-fetch advertising placement opportunity information to spread the workload across large-scale operations.

The ADR modules manages ad decision request distribution across multiple ad decision services to support peak demand times and to place and distribute advertising. It also handles protocol translation and the routing of placement opportunity requests.

An ad-targeting tool, ADS creates opportunities for focusing ads at a national, regional or local level, as well as updating commercial messages to prevent them from becoming obsolete. The module supports individual or zone targeting for linear, on-demand or DVR. It can also make alternate content decisions for content blackouts or other program substitutions.

Imagine addresses multiplatform advertising with the CloudXtream Dynamic Ad Insertion platform, which is available now and can feature all the modules as a complete system, or individually. Imagine will show the systems at the upcoming NAB Show in Las Vegas.

SAN DIEGO – DVEO plans to introduce its new multi-carrier advertising platform, the SPOTTER, at the upcoming 2015 IBC Show. The SPOTTER is a targeted ad insertion and delivery platform that uses content and viewer information to determine ads played out to any viewer, combining content type, consumer profile and geographical location data by mining multiple data bases in real-time.

SPOTTER Targeted Ad Insertion Platform

The SPOTTER functions by transcoding content and inserting SCTE 35 signals with the metadata required for ad insertion. The system can use ASI, IP, or HD-SDI as an input, and DVB-ASI or IP as its output. Automated UDP Packet Recovery Technology can also be added via DVEO’s DOZER for error-free, real-time video delivery to MSO, cable operator, affiliate, or regional head ends.

SCTE 35 signals are used to prepare streams for various combinations of program types, regional zones, or viewer profiles. If SCTE signals or the content creator/originator are not involved, SPOTTER can identify content type by analyzing the program guide, closed captions, face/image and video recognition of live video signals.

Additional SPOTTER features include the ability to trigger “ad starts” and deliver targeted ads to set top boxes and mobile viewers.

Provider of digital video and HDTV products, DVEO will be at booth 2.A24 at IBC 2015, which runs from Sept. 11-15 in Amsterdam.

General Dynamics Mediaware’s InStream Splice enables seamless insertion of file-based and live video feeds directly into the live compressed digital video stream.
OTTAWA—Based on global ad revenues, Google is the world’s largest media owner; according to ZenithOptimedia’s Top Thirty Global Media Owners 2015 report. Moreover, Google is 136 percent bigger than Disney, the world’s second-largest media owner. Google is also bigger, in terms of ad revenues, than Disney—and the third-largest media company, Comcast—combined.

One major reason why Google has gained such traction in the advertising market is its ability to narrow-focus its ad deliveries based on each user’s personal demographics and preferences; ensuring that a 20-something male isn’t seeing commercials for Depends. In contrast, broadcasters are stuck with linear advertising where one ad is seen by all.

“Even when a TV show is targeted at a specific demographic, linear advertising cannot provide the same precise targeting offered by Google, Facebook, and other major websites,” said Aravindh Vanchesan, digital media industry manager for research firm Frost & Sullivan, and an expert in cutting-edge advertising technologies. “The difference is similar to the long-distance precision of a sniper’s rifle, and the scattered birdshot blast of a shotgun.”

CUSTOM DEMOGRAPHICS

Telestream’s VOD Producer DAI provides DAI functionality for content owners and cable TV operators.
Fortunately for broadcasters, there is a weapon that can help them stand their ground with Google and other major websites: dynamic ad insertion. DAI allows broadcasters to electronically mark their linear program feeds with the “in” and “out” points where commercials and PSAs have been inserted. Like the in/out points of a video edit, these points alert a connected DAI server/service to places in the feeds where new ads can be inserted. And like Google, these ads can be selected based on the specific demographics and preferences of viewers.

“The only downside is that this insertion can only be done in non-broadcast mode, such as cable TV VOD playback or OTT streaming,” said Vanchesan. “Still, this represents an opportunity for broadcasters to make their program feeds more valuable to advertisers, thus increasing the amount that they can charge for their slots.”

Case in point: “‘With the advent of dynamic ad insertion, broadcasters can decide when to go with dynamic targeted ads online immediately or add to ratings within the C3 window and then move to dynamic targeted ads,” said Corey Halverson, product director of media business solutions for Akamai. “This can deliver more ad revenues to streaming broadcasters.”

THINKING AHEAD

At present, dynamic ad insertion is not a major priority for broadcasters; at least based on their level of takeup. “Some of the major networks are doing some work in this area,” Vanchesan said. “However, right now many don’t see the financial benefit in terms of CPMs [cost per impression] and increased ad revenues, so they are going slow.”

Broadcasters’ attitudes to DAI may change once the ATSC 3.0 standard is deployed. Under ATSC 3.0, it will be possible to replace linear ads during live broadcasts with substitute ads stored in the viewers’ smart TVs or set-top boxes. Delivered by non-real-time transmissions, these substitute ads can be delivered embedded in the ATSC 3.0 OTA signal stream, or via a connected broadband channel.

“With ATSC 3.0, broadcasters will be able to insert targeted ads based on regional zones or audience segments,” said Anne Schelle; managing director for Pearl, the broadcaster-driven next-generation research partnership.

Triveni Digital, a Princeton, N.J. based provider of professional monitoring and metadata management solutions for broadcast, sees a real future for DAI under ATSC 3.0, according to Ralph Bachofen, vice president of sales and marketing. At the NAB Show, the company demonstrated targeted advertising technology for the nextgen standard. “ATSC 3.0 can give broadcasters the kind of DAI flexibility currently reserved today for cable TV, and the Web,” Bachofen said.

Other vendors are already releasing products that leverage the power of DAI for broadcasters. For instance, Elemental Technologies’ Delta video platform, which manages the packaging and distribution of video across multiple viewing platforms, includes the ability to set and read “ad insertion” points, on a “justin-time” basis.” Rather than having to store multiple prerecorded versions of the program feed, Delta can do DAI on the fly with each playout. “You can use this same feature to serve national TV ads on a network feed with localized ads in real-time,” said Lionel Bringuier, director of product management for Elemental in Portland, Ore. “Delta adds a level of content control that frees up broadcasters to serve various parts of their audiences more effectively.”

General Dynamics Mediaware’s InStream is an integrated, scalable liner TV ad insertion and playout system that runs on off-the-shelf IT-grade hardware. Capable of serving multiple channel feeds, InStream can frame-accurately splice content into compressed transport stream broadcast, according to Shane Angelo, sales director for the Australian-based company. “At its core, InStream enables operators to regionalize linear broadcasts through the insertion of either live or prerecorded content,” he said. “File-based content, such as advertisements, promos and news clips in short and long form, can be loaded directly into InStream Splice’s embedded video server for direct playout.”

Disney/ABC recently chose Imagine Communications’ VersioCloud IP-based infrastructure to migrate its global playout/distribution system to the cloud, a move that will help advance the networks’ DAI capabilities. Glen LeBrun, vice president of product marketing for Imagine in Dallas describes Disney’s adoption of VersioCloud as a “‘virtual master control’ approach that supports highly flexible ad insertion based on regional and demographic criteria. We feel that DAI is the right way to go in this setting, which is why it is a big part of Versio-Cloud.”

At the 2015 NAB Show, Telestream introduced its VOD Producer DAI, which provides DAI functionality for content owners and cable TV operators. “The big problem for such providers is that their VOD content has been assembled in complete linear form; if you want to replace the ads, you have to redo the entire video feed,” said Paul Turner, vice president of enterprise product management for the Nevada City, Calif.-based company. “VOD Producer DAI allows you to create the content such that new ads can be inserted during playout as needed.” The result: cable VOD is freed from its linear advertising constraints.

With increasing interest in customizing ad distribution, DAI could be a boon for broadcasters wanting to level the advertising playing field with Google and other online digital media. “There is strong momentum building towards implementing DAI solutions from every aspect of the value chain, including content owners, broadcasters, MSOs, and advertisers,” said Vanchesan. “But there still are technological and business model hurdles that need to be addressed before DAI goes mainstream.”